Pristina "to draft ZSO statute within four months"

Pristina "to draft ZSO statute within four months"

A statement posted on the website of the the European External Action Service said that "the drafting process for the statute has started and will take place within a four-month time frame."

"This long awaited step allows for the implementation of the dialogue agreement on the Association/Community of Serb majority municipalities to commence, which is an obligation Kosovo undertook in the EU facilitated dialogue, the Brussels April 2013 and August 2015 agreements," the statement added, and concluded:

"The EU will be inviting the chief negotiators from Belgrade and Pristina, their teams, as well as the management team and technical experts for discussions in Brussels, to engage constructively and in good faith in the drafting process."

After the arrest in Kosovo on March 26 of Serbian Government's Office for Kosovo and Metohija Marko Djuric, the Serb List left the government in Pristina, and said it would start forming the ZSO if Kosovo authorities did not start doing this by April 20.

The Office earlier on Thursday reacted to the announcement from Pristina to say that Serbs in Kosovo would participate in the work to form the ZSO "exclusively in the way it was agreed in Brussels."

The Office said it doubted the sincerity of Pristina, that was entering this process after several years of delays.

"The implementation of the agreement (on the ZSO) should have started 1,812 days ago, and not with words, ahead of some summit, to satisfy the international public, but truly and essentially, in order to solve the problems that citizens have on the ground," a statement said.

Selective implementation of what has been agreed is not acceptable, the stateement continued - that is, any unilateral annulling or changing of the parts or of the whole of the agreement by the Pristina constitutional court, or any other interim organ or institution.

"We don't need a ZSO that will be an empty shell with powers of an NGO, Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija want to build a powerful and strong ZSO, with jurisdictions agreed in Brussels, that can protect our people and enable them to take care of their own destiny. Belgrade and Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija want all reached agreements on the formation of the ZSO to be respected and implemented, and will be undertaking all activities envisaged by that agreement that lead to it being formed," the Office said.